A young sailor forced to sit out a role in a 40,000-mile clipper race around the world is ready to get her sea legs again.

Chanara Smith-Rookes, 21, was fast-tracked to represent Bermuda in the Clipper 2019-20 Round the World Yacht Race before it was postponed as the global Covid-19 hit.

But – after refreshing their skills in home waters over the last seven months – Ms Smith-Rookes said she and shipmate Matthew Stephens were eager to get back on deck after they were told that the race would get under way in August next year.

She said: “It looks like they’re pushing forward for it to happen.

“I’m unsure how the rest of the world would be, but I feel optimistic because we seem to be handling it properly and so I think we’ll be able to maintain safety for everybody.”

She added: “They’re trying to keep it basically around the same time, so I would be going in July and hopefully everything works out if the host countries haven’t dropped out.”

Ms Smith-Rookes and Mr Stephens, 19, were picked as members of the “ambassador crew” in November last year to join the team on Bermuda’s boat, the GoToBermuda, on the seventh and eighth legs of the race.

The pair travelled to Britain to undergo weeks of gruelling training to prepare themselves for the 11-month endurance test.

But Ms Smith-Rookes, a Royal Bermuda Regiment soldier from St George’s, said that she learnt in April that the organisers had decided to postpone most of the race.

She said: “At the time, I wasn’t really thinking about the Clippers Race because the pandemic was at the forefront of my mind, but when we did get the news of the race ending I thought it was appropriate.”

Mr Stephens was scheduled to join the crew in Seattle in April and sail through the Panama Canal to New York.

Ms Smith-Rookes planned to replace Mr Stephens aboard GoToBermuda in June when the ship left New York for the last leg of the race.

She would have sailed to Bermuda and stayed on the ship until it reached the finish line in London.

Ms Smith-Rookes said that she knew that it was better to be in Bermuda during the pandemic than out at sea.

She added that there were two Clipper Race staff who stayed in Subic Bay in the Phillipines to look after the ships when the race was postponed.

Ms Smith-Rookes added: “I felt for them because they’re in a completely different country by themselves and having to deal with this pandemic and the effects of it while still working for the clipper.”

Ms Smith-Rookes said that she took the opportunity to keep herself fit and brush up on her sailing techniques such as knot-tying and working the sails.

She added that she was embodied soon after the Government ordered emergency lockdown measures and spent much of her time at RBR-manned checkpoints around the island.

Ms Smith-Rookes said that she felt “humbled” to be a part of the essential services that worked during the lockdown.

She said: “This is my country and I’m just doing my part to help serve it.

“Being one of the people that were on the front lines and being one of the faces that most of the island passes by every day is quite an amazing situation to be in.”

She added: “I got chosen by the Regiment to be Bermuda’s ambassador. I’m lost for words most of the time because I’m very lucky and I've been given very great opportunities.

“I feel like everything happens for a reason and this allowed me to prepare myself, even more than I thought I would have been for the initial face.”

This article has been updated to reflect that the race was postponed, not cancelled and that it is expected to resume in August, not July, as originally published.